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Francesco Meli

WORLD OPERA STARS

Those Magnifi cent Men On The High Cs

Just like “soprano”, “alto”, or “bass”, the word “tenor” comes from Latin (from the verb “tenere” – to hold) and refers neither to the voice’s compass nor potential, but to its position in the four-part harmony system. The tenor is the central voice which “holds” the leading theme of a piece, while other voices draw their arabesques around it. As a matter of fact, we still talk about the “tenor” of somebody’s statement (its contents and meaning)… Thus, there are no extremities, no display; on the contrary, “tenor” is the golden mean, it is peace and temperance.

Piotr Kamiński

The first operatic roles for such a voice were written by Claudio Monteverdi (L’Orfeo, 1607; Ulysses in Il ritorno d’Ulisse [The Return of Ulysses], 1640), and they are so comfortable that – especially if a lower, “Baroque” pitch is used – they can be handled by contemporary baritones. This vocal realism did not last long, though. None other than Monteverdi wrote the role of Nero in L’incoronazione di Poppea [The Coronation of Poppea] for a castrato; his pupil and successor, Francesco
Cavalli, systematically entrusted heroic roles to such virtuosos. Like all composers or dramatists, artists forced to work with performers, he was a sober-minded practitioner, and wrote for the best voices at his disposal. Thus, Händel’s discovery in Italy of an excellent… tenor, Francesco Borosini, soon resulted in the composition of two most exquisite roles of the kind since Monteverdi: Bajazet’s in Tamerlano [Tamerlane] (1724) and Grimoaldo’s in Rodelinda (1725). These were not, however, lover characters, but “father” and “tyrant”, for in opera seria the key to the prima donna’s bedroom was still wielded by the “primo uomo”, or “the main man” – “thrilling in terms of his voice”, yet in a way “incomplete, as if a quarter, or a half of something”…Tenor sneaked into the prima donna’s favours as if through the back door: through Händel’s English oratorios (which were frequently operas in disguise), where the roles of romantic leads and heroes (Jupiter, Samson, Jephtha) were performed by the great John Beard; above all, however, through opera buffa, which favoured natural voices over those artifi cially… trimmed. For the same reasons, right from the very beginning of the French opera, these were tenors (referred to as the “haute-contre”) who sang the roles of romantic leads, for French rationalism did not tolerate castrati. Mozart carefully separated these two
worlds: in opera seria, he wrote “fathers and tyrants” for the tenor voice (Mitridate [Mithridates], Lucio Silla
[Lucius Sulla], Idomeneo, all the way to La Clemenza di Tito [The Clemency of Titus]); whereas tenor takes over the lover’s function in comic operas, Italian and German, and right from the very fi rst of them, La Finta semplice [The Pretended Simpleton]. Händel’s and Mozart’s tenor typically “ends” (with rare exceptions) with the note “A” (a1), a whole third lower than the famous “high C”; yet, the singer is forced to vocalise like the coloratura soprano. Soon, however, tenors begin to discover the potential of the mi ssing third, in time reaching even higher. The highest note ever written for the voice is the high F of Arturo’s part in the 3rd act of Bellini’s I Puritani [Puritans]. It was intended for the greatest legend of Romantic singing, Giovanni Battista Rubini. In the meantime, concert halls had grown bigger, orchestras had expanded, and instead of coloratura intricacies and subtle modulations, singers were required to come up with more and more “bang”. Here, revolution began with Gilbert Duprez, who took the risk of delivering the high C of Arnold’s aria in Rossini’s last opera Guillaume Tell [William Tell] (1829) not with the traditionally intricate blend of registers combining gold and velvet, but “right from the chest”, fortissimo. Although Rossini shuddered with disgust, the audience were ecstatic. Crestfallen, unable to sing like this, Duprez’s rival, the great Adolphe Nourrit, fl ed Paris. The whole program of the recital performed by Francesco Meli in Poznań comes from the period following Dupres’s “chest” revolution. The audacious Frenchman is recalled twice. Perhaps the most famous tenor scene in Gaetano Donizetti’s entire output, Edgardo’s tragic aria which closes Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), was written specially for him, and it was a much greater breakthrough in the career of the not-yet thirty-yearold artist than the “high C scandal”. His spirit is also felt in the aria from Il Duca d’Alba [The Duke of Alba]. Donizetti never completed the work based on the script known from Verdi’s Vêpres siciliennes [Sicilian Vespers]; however, to save the main protagonist’s aria “Spirto gentil”, he transferred it to La Favorite [The Favourite] (1840), where the “primo tenore” was none else than Duprez. Forty years later, when Donizetti’s heirs and the musical editor Lucca entrusted completion of the score to the composer’s student, Mateo Salvi, a new aria, “Angelo casto e bel”, emerged. Composed presumably by the said Salvi, it gained a considerable popularity on records (incl. Caruso’s version)… under Donizetti’s name! Although the names of performers for whom Donizetti intended other arias from the recital are less famous, we would not mind getting to know the singer for whom the composer tailored the delicious part of Nemorino in L’Elisir d’amore [The Elixir of Love] (1832). Giambattista Genero, who vanished into thin air at the age of thirty-fi ve (even the date of his death remains a mystery), must have been quite an accomplished artist, as he also had Arturo’s part from I Puritani in his repertoire. We know more about Giovanni Basadonna, the Roberto Devereux from the eponymous opera (1837). He sang both Arturo from I Puritani, and Edgardo from Lucia, roles emblematic for two epochs of tenor singing. It was him, whose talent supposedly dealt the fi nal blow
to the already mentioned Adolphe Nourrit: having heard him in his exile in Naples, the French singer jumped
out of his hotel balcony… Four years later, in 1843, Giuseppe Verdi’s fourth opera, I Lombardi [The Lombards], premiered at La Scala with the thirty-year-old Carlo Guasco cast in the role of Oronte (a supporting romantic lead, who only appears in the latter part of the work). The talent of the young artist must have made a profound impression on Verdi, for he wrote for him a beautiful, melodic and passionate aria, which was soon followed by the composer’s fi rst great tenor role, this of Ernani (1843), and later by that of Foresto in Attila (1846). However, Guasco was quick to abandon the stage… Not so with Gaetano Fraschini, one of the greatest tenors of the century, who sang for almost forty years, and was one of Verdi’s favourite artists. Their meeting at the premiere performance of Alzira (1845), resulted in the main roles in Il Corsaro [The Corsair] (1848), La Battaglia di Legnano [The Battle of Legnano] (1849) and Stiffelio (1850), all the way to the most beautiful of them all, this of Riccardo in Un Ballo in maschera [A Masked Ball] (1859). He may have been Verdi’s… nicest tenor protagonist, the embodiment of the “canto di grazia”. Fraschini also successfully sang the roles of the Duke in Rigoletto and Alfredo in Traviata. Verdi also valued the artist who sang Rodolfo in the premiere performance of Luisa Miller (1849), even though the role was not intended for him: Settimio Malvezzi was called in to help, when the original tenor proved hopeless! Things were exactly the opposite with the famous Manrico from Il Trovatore [The Troubadour] (1855): here, Verdi envisaged one of his favourites, Raffaele Mirate, the fi rst Duke from Rigoletto, cast in the role; he did, however, accept Carlo Baucardé, a “secondhand” tenor (he began as a baritone, just like Lauritz Melchior and Carlo Bergonzi), who acquitted himself excellently. Monbar, czyli Flibustierowie [Monbar, or the Flibusters], an opera by Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński (1807-1867), belongs to the same Romantic world as Bellini’s Pirata [Pirate] and Verdi’s Corsaro, and its life was as tumultuous as those led by the heroes of these works. Having composed it in the late-1830s, at the peak of Donizetti’s career, Dobrzyński was able to conduct its Warsaw stage premiere only… in January 1863. The January Uprising (1863) put an end to the career of the work, which fell into oblivion for 150 years. Resurrected by Po lish Radio’s Channel Two, its concert performance on 19 September 2010 opened the season of the Polish Radio Orchestra and Polish Radio
Choir. The concert, which was held at Polish Radio’s Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio, was conducted by Łukasz Borowicz.

Recorded at Adam Mickiewicz University Auditorium in Poznań on 11 December 2009 during concert Gwiazdy Światowych Scen Operowych (World Opera Stars) series

Giuseppe Verdi

GIOVANNA D’ARCO

Ladies and Gentlemen,

there is no such thing as a “bad” opera by Verdi. Even the worst of them (and each of us has his or her candidate…) will captivate the listener with the energy of musical narration, inspire with melodious invention, charm with instrumental detail. Each will also contain a gem, an aria, a duet, or a whole sequence to surpass everything written by the Master of Busseto’s rivals at the time.

Does it mean that we rate Giovanna d’Arco (première: Milan, La Scala, 15 Feb. 1845) among the composer’s “weakest” operas? By no means, and there are more reasons for this than just our conviction that the very question lacks sense. Like Haydn with his symphonies and string quartets, Verdi wrote operas all his life. Each of them constitutes not only an indispensable phase in his development, but also a step forward (1844: The Two Foscari), and a door open to the next stage of his career (1845: Alzira; 1846: Attila). With the brilliant title role tailored for one of the greatest opera singers of the time, Erminia Frezzolini, her two wonderful duets (with her beloved, king Charles, in act I, and with her father, Giacomo, in act III), spectacular crowd scenes, and brisk rhythms, the opera’s première proved a great success. It was played sixteen more times, and Milan organ grinders quickly added “hits” from the new piece to their repertoire. For the next quarter of the century, Giovanna d’Arco enjoyed a certain degree of popularity on European stages. Soon, however, it was to share the fate of other early operas by the author of Rigoletto, i.e. to fall into oblivion.

I believe it was caused not so much by its shortcomings, but… by our sullenness, for at the end of the 19th century we began to judge historical operas using criteria typical of the world of science rather than this of entertainment. Based upon a very simplifi ed tragedy by Schiller, the story of Saint Joan of Arc who falls in love with the beautiful king, gets betrayed by her father, and does not end at the stake, but dies a hero’s death on the battlefi eld, stood no chance. Unaware of great loss, we welcomed such works with ridicule or indignation.

Our production is the fi rst Polish staging of the opera with Polish cast (albeit with an Italian tenor cast in the role of king Charles VII). The audience of the Poznań Philharmonic has heard the concert version of Giovanna d’Arco, which grants the listeners’ imagination unadulterated freedom. In an era when directors’ infl ated egos mixed with stale prejudices towards the genre have them mock the libretto and show disdain for the music (as a result of which they often miss the meaning and style of a piece, i.e. its deepest identity), the concert performance lends it a new freshness. It is like a live recording: music resounds here and now; we can, however, close our eyes and in the privacy of our imagination, for our own purpose, create the theatrical ideal…

Piotr Kamiński

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)Giovanna d’Arco An Opera in Three Acts with a Prologue

Opera w Filharmonii concert recorded at Adam Mickiewicz University Auditorium in Poznań on 6 November 2010.

MUZA Polskie Nagrania

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Franz Xaver Scharwenka

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 4 POLISH NATIONAL DANCES

He was born in the middle of the XIXth century in Szamotuły. His father was German, and his mother – Polish. He completed his primary and secondary education in Szamotuły and Poznan, but he studied music in Berlin, where the Scharwenkas moved when Franz Xaver was a teenager. It is also there, where he began his career as a pianist and a composer and soon conquered Europe and South America (his opera Mataswintha was performed at the Metropolitan Opera). His works are well-know across the world, however, in Poland they are only being rediscovered.

Even though Franz Xaver Scharwenka always stressed his German descent, in his music one can hear the rhythms of mazurkas, obereks, krakowiaks and polonaises which points to Polish traditions and the passion for Frederic Chopin’s music as the sources of his inspiration. It will suffice to buy his latest album published by Naxos to find out about it on one’s own. Scharwenk’s compositions performed by the pianist and the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra under the conduction of Łukasz Borowicz were recorded at the University Hall at Adam Mickiewicz University – the concert hall of the Poznan Philharmonic.

Honorary Patronage: Bogdan Zdrojewski, The Minister of Culture and National Heritage Marek Woźniak, The Marshal of Greater Poland Province

Carried out thanks to the financial support of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage

FOLLOWING THE CHOPIN’S FOOSTEPS IN GREATER POLAND PROVINCE

Frederic Chopin spent the first half of his life in his homeland, while the other one in Paris. Therefore, Warsaw and Paris share this unique existence, even though those two milieus, in which Chopin led his life, bear hardly any resemblance. Chopin – as an artist and a person – matured in the first half of his life – this is when his sensitivity and personality were shaped. We possess vast knowledge of Chopin´s relations with Warsaw and Mazovia Province. Little do we know, however, of his contacts with Greater Poland Province, even though they played a significant role in his life and works. Thanks to this DVD one may follow Chopin´s footsteps in Greater Poland Province and discover places he or she has never reached before.

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Jan Kanty Pawluśkiewicz | Leszek Aleksander Moczulski

JOY OF MERCY

The CD titled Radość Miłosierdzia (Joy of Mercy) comprises a recording of the first performance of a piece ordered by Poznan Philharmonic on the thirtieth anniversary of the election of the Pope John Paul II. The masterpiece by Jan Kanty Pawluśkiewicz and Aleksander Moczulski was performed for the first time by 200 artists from Poznan and Cracow at Poznan Collegiate Church on October 16, 2008.

Rafał Jacek DELEKTA – conductor

Interludium

Purgatorium

Czy jest wyjście

Pod pieczęcią Twą

Hojność

Lecz Ty wiekuistość

Wielkie są pustki

Św. Faustyno wstaw się za nami

Modlitw naszych Tyś przyczyną

Dróg zawiłość

Jest cisza

Ogród

Napowietrzne nasze drogi

Bez tchu

Radość miłosierdzia

Sound engineering: Andrzej Solczak

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GWIAZDY ŚWIATOWYCH SCEN OPEROWYCH(WORLD OPERA STARS)

Samuel Ramey Live

Samuel Ramey Live contains a recording of the first and the only concert of a legendary bass Samuel Marey who performed with Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Łukasz Borowicz in University Auditorium on December 5, 2008. The event was a part of concert series World Opera Stars.